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Sunday, 18 December 2016

my kind of PINK.....

With the festive season round the corner, my 4-year has been trying hard to convince me that Santa will be arriving soon and it's time for her gift too. It's a different story that her wish-list changes by the hour. Till now we have had four gifts that have dropped off her list.The latest one she chose got me ticking- a remote control car with a steering wheel as a remote control- all in PINK. That got me thinking. Would I really be able to find that for her?Can girls not really get to choose a car in their favorite color as their toy? My 4-year old has often questioned 'norms' of life- she would surprisingly bracket me as the 'most hardworking and busiest' person in our home, if she finds me working from home on a weekday she will quip "hope you relaxed a bit today". So any comment from her is never taken lightly by me.

She would tell me about conversations at class where Boy A would tell her that girls need to like pink and boys like blue/green/orange/yellow. Of course she hates to hear my counter argument. My take of every color being just a color and not a 'boy color' or 'girl color' often fails. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that kids don’t know everything, any
more than adults do — and it was also a reminder that some of us aren’t squashing some of our kids views. This should be an easy one to get rid of, even if toy stores
continue to fill “girl” aisles full of pink LEGOs or dolls. Because all it
requires to change your child’s opinion is to talk to him or her. If all
parents sit down with their children and tell them that identifying
boys or girls by colors is wrong, the kids will have no choice but to
understand that.

At this level of thinking, there is no middle ground. This isn’t about
making your kid like your favorite sports team; this is about making sure your
child is accepting of all people, no matter what their favorites are.
It’s about ensuring that all kids feel comfortable being themselves.Yes, girls can like pink; yes, boys can hate pink. No, your child does
not have the right to tell someone he isn’t being a boy because he likes
the color pink — or that a girl has to like pink “because she’s a
girl or that she won't find her favorite toy in her favorite color just because girls are not expected to play with it.”

So while my search for the most awesome PINK remote control continues, my 4-year old has smartly decided to settle for a red one :-)